Combination warehouse-retail sales facility

ABSTRACT

An improved combination furniture warehouse - retail sales facility includes spaced parallel elongate retail showroom enclosures supported above the floor of the facility by spaced warehouse rack structures. Furniture-handling equipment operates on the floor of the structure in the warehouse access aisles between the storage racks. A mezzanine provides for customer access to the showroom enclosures. The mezzanine connects the entrances to the enclosures with a customer entrance door. Physical safety of the customer is assured by physically segregating them on the mezzanine floor spaced above the main floor on which the furniture-handling equipment operates.

United States Patent [1 1 Short [4 1 Nov. 12, 1974 COMBINATIONWAREHOUSE-RETAIL SALES FACILITY [75] Inventor: Thomas W. Short, Phoenix,Ariz.

[73] Assignee: Levitz Furniture Corporation,

Pottstown, Pa.

[22] Filed: Nov. 19, 1973 [21] Appl. No.: 417,033

[52] US. Cl 52/236, 52/36, 214/164 [51] .Int. Cl E04h 3/02 [58] Field ofSearch-...., 52/33, 236, 36, 40; 214/16, 16.4 R, 16.4 A

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,233,374 2/1966 Micheels52/36 Primary Examiner.lohn E. Murtagh Attorney, Agent, or FirmWilliamH. Drummond; Gregory J. Nelson; Don J. Flickinger [57] ABSTRACT Animproved combination furniture warehouse retail sales facility includesspaced parallel elongate retail showroom enclosures supported above thefloor of the facility by spaced warehouse rack structures.Furniture-handling equipment operates on the floor'of the structure inthe warehouse access aisles between the storage racks. A mezzanineprovides for customer access to the showroom enclosures. The mezzanineconmeets the entrances to the enclosures with a customer entrance door.Physical safety of the customer is assured by physically segregatingthem on the mezzanine floor spaced above the main floor on which thefurniture-handling equipment operates.

1 Claim, 5 Drawing Figures PATENTED Nov 12 m4 saw 10? 5 3'846'947 IEIE-i PATENTEUNUY 12 1914 saw nor 5 3'845-947 JUP 4 COMBINATIONWAREHOUSE-RETAIL SALES FACILITY This invention relates to a novelbuilding construction.

More specifically, the invention relates to a warehouse with integralwarehouse-showroom facilities.

In a further and more particular respect, the invention relates to abuilding construction specially adapted for warehouse storage and retailsale of furniture, household appliances and related items.

In still another and more specific respect, the invention relates to anintegrated building facility to which merchandise is delivered by railor truck directly from the manufacturer where it is stored in speciallyconstructed warehouse areas, displayed for sale in specially constructedretail showroom areas, sold to retail customers, and delivered directlyto the customer or loaded into vans for delivery to thecustomersresidences. 1

In another important respect, the invention concerns a building facilityof the type described which occupies less land than conventional retailfurniture stores and associated warehouse facilities and which can bemore rapidly and economically erected, using less highly skilled labor.

Until very recent times, virtually all furniture and applianc es weresoldat conventional retail furniture stores located in the businessdistricts of metropolitan areas. These business districts were usuallylocated at some distance from major transportation facilities such asrailroads and interstate highways. Consequently, merchandise wastransported from the furniture factories to warehouses located in thevicinity of the major transportation facilities and was thenredistributed to the conventional retail furniture stores to replacestock as it was sold to the retail purchaser. In the retail store, thefurniture was conventionallydisplayed in yast open areas where it wasvirtually impossible to visualize the furniture as it would appear inthe purchasers home, grouped in room settings with appropriate lightfixtures, lamps, pictures, wall hangings, and other accessories. Afterthe retail customer made his selections, the furniture was normallytransferred to a shipping dock where it was loaded into vans fordelivery to the customers residence. Usually, there were no facilitiesprovided for the customer to pick up his own purchases and load theminto his own vehicle for immediate selfdelivery.

Recently, conventional retail furniture stores located in downtownmetropolitan business districts have been widely displaced bycombination warehouse-showroom facilities located in outlyingmetropolitan areas served by both rail and highway transportation. Thepotential retail customer can usually reach such sales facilities morequickly and conveniently as they are located on major highways away fromnormally congested downtown business districts. The furniture isdelivered by rail directly into the combination warehouseshowroomfacility where it is stored and where representative items are displayedin adjacent retail facilities. The customer makes his selections fromsamples available in the retail showroom portion of the facility andcorresponding items, still crated or bosed, are removed from thewarehouse portion of the facility and delivered directly to the customerat a special pickup dock or loaded into vans for delivery to thecustomers residence. Substantial savings are effected because of,

reduced furniture handling costs as compared to the handling costsencountered in operating conventional retail furniture stores, and thecustomer is able to effect even further savings by self-delivery of hispurchases, if desired.

Special display techniques were also developed to complement thewarehouse-showroom facilities described above. The retail showroom,located in a separate area adjacent to the warehouse storage area, wasdivided by numerous elongate partitions into aisles not substantiallywider than a room in a conventional residence, and a room-height ceilingfurther contributed to the home-like setting. The furniture could thenbe displayed in room-setting groups along with appropriate wall-mountedaccessories, ceiling fixtures, etc., such that the customer could moreaccurately visualize how the furniture would appear in his home.Furthermore, related room settings such as living room suites, diningroom sets, etc., could be rapidly inspected and com pared by thepurchaser as he walked along the elongate aisles containing the repeatedgroupings of similar furniture.

The operators of warehouse-showroom facilities expended considerablesums in advertising to impress the prospective retail customer that hewas, in fact, purchasing his furniture from a warehouse facility, withattendant savings, increased availability of specific items, andimmediate delivery. However, despite these advertising expenditures, itwas discovered that the only completely effective way of impressing thecustomer with these facts was to have the customer entrance to thefacility located in close proximity to the customer .pickup dock wherehe could see previous customers picking up the merchandise they had justpurchased and have the customer entrance open directly into thewarehouse area where the customer could actually see the merchandisejust purchased being removed from the warehouse storage racks and takento the customer pickup dock. After the customer passed by the pickupdock and through a portion of the warehouse area, he then entered theseparate retail showroom area described above to view the room settingsof furniture arranged along the elongate aisles.

Although the warehouse-showroom facilities described above operate witha high degree of efficiency, it would be desirable, in view of land andconstruction costs, to reduce the overall area occupied by the facilityand reduce the cost and complexity of the building and equipment.However, it would also be desirable to effect these economies inbuilding construction and land costs without reducing the storagecapacity of the warehouse facility or the amount of retail showroomspace available, while retaining the advantageous layout of the showroomfacilities and enabling the customer to readily perceive that he is, infact, making his purchases in a warehouse facility.

In my prior co-pending application Ser. No. 280,491, filed Aug. 14,1972, I describe a mezzanine-storage warehouse with integral retailshowroom facilities. This novel building effected distinct economies inconstruction and land costs without reducing the storage capacity of thewarehouse facility or the amount of retail showroom space available incomparison to prior conventional warehouse-showroom facilities. Theseeconomies were effected while retaining the desired layout of showroomfacilities and enabling the customer to readily perceive that he, infact, is making his purchases from a warehouse facility The buildingconstruction disclosed in my said copending application consisted of aplurality of parallel elongate enclosures which defined retail showroomareas inside the enclosures and warehouse access aisles between them. Aplurality of vertically spaced warehouse storage floors were locatedabove the showroom enclosures. The warehouse storage spaces between thestorage floors opened onto and were accessible from the warehouse aislesbetween the showrooms. A building enclosed the retail showrooms and thewarehouse access aisles and the storage spaces.

In the building described in my said co-pending application,communication for customers between the reof operation and visualimpression, there existed the possibility of injury to customers by thefurniturehandling equipment which utilized the same floor space in thecross-aisle. To alleviate this possibility, special measures weresuggested in my co-pending application such as the provision of aspecially constructed stacker crane which operated on rails spaced abovethe warehouse storage floors and special enclosures at the point ofjuncture of the warehouse access aisles and the cross-aisle to preventcollisions with customers traversing the cross-aisle. Such measures,however, proved unduly expensive and, in addition, tended to detractfrom the desired physical impression of the potential customer. Inparticular, the use of the specially constructed stacker crane dictatedthat at least one such crane be provided for each of the plurality ofwarehouse access aisles.

Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to provide a combinationwarehouse retail sales facility of the generaltype disclosed in my saidco-pending application which is improved by the provision of separatefloor spaces in the cross-aisle to maintain physical segregation of theprospective customers and the furniture-handling equipment. Similarly,it would be highly desirable to provide an improved facility of thegeneral type described in my said co-pending application which permitsthe use of a reduced number of stacker cranes and, further, whichpermits the use of stacker cranes of more standard design which arealready conventionally available.

Accordingly, it is the principal object of the present invention toprovide an improved combination warehouse retail sales storage facility.

Another important object of the invention is to provide such improvedcombination warehouse retail sales facility in which the safety aspectsof the operation of the facility are vastly improved by the physicalsegregation of potential customers and furniturehandling equipment.

Still another object of the invention is to provide an improved facilityof the type described above which makes it possible to utilize a reducednumber of stacker cranes.

Yet another object of the invention is to provide a safer facility ofthe type described above which permits the use of conventionallyconstructed stacker cranes rather than the more expensive speciallyconstructed cranes described in my said co-pending application.

Still another and further important object of the invention is theprovision of an improved combination warehouse retail sales facilityhaving the foregoing advantages in which the desired visual impact onthe prospective retail customer is not substantially reduced or in whichthe visual impression is even enhanced while maintaining the physicalsegregation of the customers and furniture-handling equipment.

These and other, further and more specific objects andadvantages of theinvention will be apparent to those skilled'in the art from thefollowing detailed description thereof taken in conjunction with thedrawings, in whichz.

FIG. 1 is a cutaway perspective view of a construction embodying theprinciples of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the lower floor of the building of FIG. 1disclosing details of the furniture-receiving facilities and the aisleswhich provide access to the warehouse storage racks by thefurniture-handling equipment;

FIG. 3 is a plan view of the upper floor of the building of FIG. 1showing further details of the retail showroom enclosures, the mezzanineproviding access for the cus tomers between the entrance and the variousshowrooms;

FIG. 4 is a sectional view of the building of FIG. 1 taken along sectionline 4-4 thereof, showing further details of the warehouse rackstructure, the retail display enclosures and other building facilities;and

FIG. 5 is a prospective view of one of the rack struc- I tures of thebuilding of FIG. 1 showing, in greater detail, the relationship of therack structure, the showroom enclosure, the customer mezzanine and otherbuilding facilities.

Briefly, in accordance with my invention,'l provide improvements in thecombination warehouse retail sales facility of the general typedescribed in my copending application Ser. No. 280,491. The facilitydescribed in said co-pending application includes a plurality ofelongate parallel warehouse rack structures spaced laterally to providewarehouse access aisles on the floor of the facility for movement offurniturehandling equipment. Means are provided which define continuouselongate showroom areas on the floor of the facility enclosed within thelower portions of each of the warehouse rack structures. A cross-aisleextends upwardly from the floor of the facility and at right angles tothe warehouse rack structures, providing communication for prospectivecustomers between the retail showroom areas and providing communicationfor furniture-handling equipment between the warehouse access aisles. Acustomer entrance door is provided in an outer wall of the facilitywhich communicates with the cross-aisle.

The improvement of the present invention provides for physicalsegregation of the customers and furniturehandling equipment to avoidthe possibility of injury to the customers by the moving equipment. Theimprovement comprises, in combination, side wall, ceiling and floormeans carried in the warehouse rack structures defining continuouselongate retail showroom enclosures, the floors of which are spacedvertically above the floors of the warehouse access aisles. Means areprovided which form a continuous mezzanine in the cross-aisle extendingat right angles to the retail showroom enclosures and across thewarehouse access aisles, providing communication between enclosures forprospective customers. A plurality of vertically spaced warehousestorage floors are located below theenclosures, the warehouse storagespaces between the storage floors opening onto and being accessible fromthe warehouse access aisles and the cross-aisle. Outer walls and roofmeans form a building enclosing the warehouse rack structures, thewarehouse access aisles, the warehouse storage spaces and thecross-aisle. Means are provided defining a customer entrance door in oneof the outer walls of the building, communicating with the mezzanine.

Turning now to the drawings, FIG. 1 depicts a building constructionwhich constitutes the presently preferred embodiment of the invention.Prospective customers enter the building through customer entry doorsopening onto a mezzanine 11 spaced above the main floor 12 of thebuilding. The mezzanine 11 communicates with spaced parallel showroomenclosures 13 in which furniture is displayed for sale, preferably inroom-like settings. The spaced parallel showrooms 13 are integrallyformed in and supported by a plurality of spaced parallel warehouse rackstructures 14. Warehouse access aisles 15 are provided between the rackstructures 14 for movement of furniture-handling equipment such asstacker cranes, etc., supported on the main floor 12. Customers walkingon the mezzanine 11 are impressed with the fact that they are purchasingfurniture from an actual warehouse facility because the high-volumecontinuous operation by the provision of i a rail delivery siding 16running through the building such that merchandise on the railroad carscan be emptied directly onto the fioor l2 and moved immediately via theaccess aisles 15 to storage in the rack structures 14. Shipment ofpurchases to customers residences are made by means of delivery trucks17 loaded through doors 18 opening onto the lower floor 12.Alternatively, customers may personally pick up their purchases at aspecial customer pickup dock 19. Note that even prior to entering thebuilding through the doors 10, prospective customers are provided with acomplete view of the customer pickup facilities 19, the truck deliveryfacilities 18 and the rail receiving facilities 16. Space for offices 21and 22 is provided on the mezzanine level to facilitate access of thecustomers to various required office services such as credit clearances,cashiers, etc.

The layout of the ground floor of the building of FIG. 1 is furtherillustrated in FIG. 2 which is a plan view of the lower floor. As willbe observed, the warehouse rack'units, generally indicated by referencecharacter 22, are positioned in spaced parallel arrangement supported onthe main floor with main warehouse access aisles 15 therebetween. In theareas directly below the showroom enclosures, warehouse accesssub-aisles 15b are provided. Furniture is removed from the railroad cars16a entering the side of the building on a spur 16 and moved byconventional furniture-handling equipment via the main warehouse accessaisles l5 and the sub-aisles 15b to storage in the rack structures 22.After purchase, thespecific items are removed via the aisles 15 and 15bby the same handling equipment either to a truck shipping dock 18b or toa customer pickup dock 19. After making their purchase, customers candescend from the mezzanine via the stair 23 to a customer waiting room24 to await delivery of their purchases to the customer pickup clock 19.

The mezzanine level of the building of FIG. 1 is depicted in greaterdetail on the mezzanine plan view of FIG. 3. Customers enter thefacility through the main customer entrance doors 10 opening onto amezzanine 11 above the main cross-aisle which connects the accessopenings 32 located in the ends of each of the elongate showroom areas13. At both ends of the showroom areas 13 and between them, the customercan directly observe the warehouse activity including the unloading ofthe rail cars 16a, the movement of the incoming merchandise to thewarehouse racks 34 and the removal of the furniture from the racks 34after it is purchased for movement to the loading docks 18b and 19 (FIG.2).

FIGS. 4-5 further illustrate the arrangement of the various elements ofthe building of FIG. 1 and such elements are identified by the samereference characters in the several views. While traversing themezzanine areas 11 protected by railings 41, the customers have fullview of the warehouse operations and access through the openings 32 intothe retail showroom areas 13 in which the furniture is preferablydisplayed in room vignette settings. As a further precaution, to preventinjury to customers traversing the mezzanine areas 11, the ends of therack structures 14 are provided with suitable screens 42 to preventmerchandise on the shelves 34 from falling onto the customers. V

The exact details of construction of the rack support structures are notdeemed necessary since any suitable prior art technique can be employedin assembling the various support components, floors, shelves, etc. Forexample, in a preferred embodiment of the invention, vertical,horizontal and triangular support members and assembly hardware such asdisclosed in US. Pat. No. 3,233,374 to Micheels et al. are used. Using,such support members and assembly hardware, the rack structures can beconveniently and quickly assembled by semi-skilled workmen.

Likewise, the exact details of construction of the side walls and roofenclosing the rack structures and forming the building are notconsidered necessary since such elements can be formed by any suitableprior art technique having regard for the disclosure hereof.

Having described my invention with sufficient particularity and insufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to understand andpractice it, I claim:

1. In a combination furniture warehouse retail sales facility speciallyadapted to physically inform prospective retail customers that they arepurchasing merchandise from a warehouse facility, said facility having aplurality of elongate parallel warehouse rack structures spacedlaterally to provide warehouse access aisles on the floor of saidfacility for movement of furniture-handling equipment,

means defining continuous elongate retail showroom areas on the floor ofsaid facility enclosed within the lower portions of each of saidwarehouse rack structures,

a cross-aisle extending upwardly from the floor of said facility and atright angles to said warehouse rack structures, providing communicationfor prospective customers between said retail showroom areas andproviding communication for furniturehandling equipment between saidwarehouse access aisles, and

a customer entrance door in an outer wall of said facility communicatingwith said cross-aisle,

the improvement whereby customers and furniturehandling equipment arephysically separated to avoid the possibility of injury of customers bythe moving equipment, said improvement comprising: a. side wall, ceilingand floor means carried in said warehouse rack structures definingcontinuous elongate retail showroom enclosures, the floors of which arespaced vertically above the floors of said warehouse access aisles;

b. means forming a continuous mezzanine in said cross-aisle extending atright angles to said retail showroom enclosures and across saidwarehouse access aisles, providing communication between said enclosuresfor customers;

0. a plurality of vertically spaced warehouse storage floors locatedbelow said enclosures, the warehouse storage spaces between said floorsopening onto and being accessible from the warehouse access aisles andsaid cross-aisle;

d. outer walls and roof means forming a building enclosing saidwarehouse rack structures, said warehouse access aisles, said warehousestorage spaces and said cross-aisle; and

e. means defining a customer entrance door in one of said outer wallscommunicating with said mezzanine.

1. In a combination furniture warehouse - retail sales facilityspecially adapted to physically inform prospective retail customers thatthey are purchasing merchandise from a warehouse facility, said facilityhaving a plurality of elongate parallel warehouse rack structures spacedlaterally to provide warehouse access aisles on the floor of saidfacility for movement of furniture-handling equipment, means definingcontinuous elongate retail showroom areas on the floor of said facilityenclosed within the lower portions of each of said warehouse rackstructures, a cross-aisle extending upwardly from the floor of saidfacility and at right angles to said warehouse rack structures,providing communication for prospective customers between said retailshowroom areas and providing communication for furniture-handlingequipment between said warehouse access aisles, and a customer entrancedoor in an outer wall of said facility communicating with saidcross-aisle, the improvement whereby customers and furniture-handlingequipment are physically separated to avoid the possibility of injury ofcustomers by the moving equipment, said improvement comprising: a. sidewall, ceiling and floor means carried in said warehouse rack structuresdefining continuous elongate retail showroom enclosures, the floors ofwhich are spaced vertically above the floors of said warehouse accessaisles; b. means forming a continuous mezzanine in said cross-aisleextending at right angles to said retail showroom enclosures and acrosssaid warehouse access aisles, providing communication between saidenclosures for customers; c. a plurality of vertically spaced warehousestorage floors located below said enclosures, the warehouse storagespaces between said floors opening onto and being accessible from thewarehouse access aisles and said cross-aisle; d. outer walls and roofmeans forming a building enclosing said warehouse rack structures, saidwarehouse access aisles, said warehouse storage spaces and saidcross-aisle; and e. means defining a customer entrance door in one ofsaid outer walls communicating with said mezzanine.